The hillside shantytown of La Carapita lies on the outskirts of
Caracas, Venezuela. Its houses, which often hold up to ten people, are
constructed mostly of thin cardboard and tin. Their religious leader is
a spunky, 31-year-old nun known as Lourdes Fuentes. In her flip-flops
and jeans she conducts a mass that calls upon the members of her
congregation to interpret the Bible for themselves and asks them to
share publicly their personal opinions regarding Jesus and the
Scriptures.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The priest who is formally assigned to this town, Juan Solorzano,
rarely visits the congregation of La Carapita. He finds the town to be
too dangerous and prefers to remain safely in his upper-middle class
neighborhood in Caracas. When he does visit, however, he offers an
austere service with no participation, which stands in stark contrast to
the services of Lourdes Fuentes. Whereas Fuentes believes in a God who
encourages the poor to empower themselves, Solorzano instructs the
villagers to embrace their poverty and hunger so as to bring them closer
to God. Solorzano also warns against the use of condoms, which he says
are ineffective, and abortion, which he labels a sin.

He and other members of the Church hierarchy have scolded Fuentes
on many occasions for her progressive, participatory services, as well
as her encouragement of condom use and abortion, both of which disregard
many of the long-held teachings of the Catholic Church. However, Fuentes
remains unfazed by the reprimands of her superiors and promises to
continue her work in the village for as long as possible. "We do
not want to see 12-year-old girls having babies or 19-year-old boys
dying of AIDS. But in many churches the nuns are too afraid to do the
same" she says.

A War of Ideologies

Small-scale grassroots progressives such as Fuentes are by no means
anomalies in Catholic Latin America. Over the last half century, this
region, which has become the most dynamic part of the world for Roman
Catholicism, housing 447.1 million of its adherents, has witnessed the
rise of a progressive movement aimed specifically at serving the needs
of the masses. But priests and bishops with traditional Catholic
profiles similar to Solorzano's are no less common. In fact, the
conflict between the two religious leaders in La Carapita is simply one
example of the thousands of battles being waged throughout Latin America
in an ideological war between conservative Catholic elites and local
grass-roots progressives.

Similar conflicts have manifested themselves in almost every Latin
American country. Progressive priests and nuns, in an effort to tailor
Catholicism to the social and economic needs of the common people, tend
to preach a form of Catholicism that is much more forgiving on issues
such as poverty, contraception, abortion, and AIDS. In contrast, the
goals of the more traditional senior members of the Church hierarchy,
and of the Vatican itself, have generally been to enforce adherence to
the long-established precepts of the Catholic Church. For decades there
has been a constant flow of reprimands and criticisms from the Vatican,
accusing local priests of violating Church doctrine and basic Catholic
tenets.

While some progressive leaders continue undaunted, preaching a
Catholicism similar to that of Lourdes Fuentes, other priests and nuns
are beginning to feel increasingly disillusioned with the official
positions of their superiors. Some progressive leaders have been
sanctioned or officially reprimanded, and others have been expelled from
the Church entirely. In addition, with the April 2005 election of Pope
Benedict XVI, an ideological conservative with traditional views on a
number of social issues, many are losing heart in what is increasingly
becoming an uphill battle against the Church authorities. As a result,
the ratio of priests to Catholics in Latin America, according to the
Associated Press, is now one of the lowest in the world, with one priest
to every 6,364 Catholics.

Due to these and other factors, membership in the Catholic Church
is waning in Latin America. Faced with competition from other
evangelical sects that are more forgiving on issues such as abortion and
contraception, the Church has noted a significant decline in membership.
According to a report from the University of Notre Dame, 50 years ago 90
percent of the Latin American region was affiliated with the Catholic
Church, compared to 70 percent today. As a result, the Catholic Church
must soon make a choice: either alter its policies to take into account
the social and economic needs of its Latin American members or continue
to witness a steady decline in membership as individuals either align
themselves with other Christian sects or abandon their faith entirely.

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A Theology of Liberation

The presence of small-scale, grassroots progressives is by no means
a recent phenomenon in Latin America. In fact, for nearly four decades
there has been an official movement known as liberation theology aimed
at catering to the needs and desires of the Latin American people. This
movement originally adopted a different tone from the one that exists
today, but its original goal of empowering the common people has
remained fundamentally the same.

Liberation theology officially began at the 1968 assembly of the
Latin American bishops in Medellin, Colombia, when the group of
participating bishops endorsed a "preferential option for the
poor" that granted priests the ability to become more involved in
the daily lives of their parishioners. Their goals were to create a
fundamental shift in the allegiances of the Church from the wealthy
ruling elite of Latin America to its poor majority, and to help overturn
the existing widespread inequality through small, localized actions.

Initially, liberation theologians tended to ally themselves with
left-wing political movements, and their rhetoric contained distinctly
socialist overtones. These positions earned them few friends among
members of the ruling authority in Rome, who strongly criticized and
handicapped the movement. Many priests were stripped of their power or
expelled from the priesthood, and a number of theological schools that
preached progressive approaches to Catholicism were shut down. In
addition, Pope John Paul II's appointment of a large number of
conservative bishops during his reign severely undermined the efforts of
liberation theologians. Then, in the 1980s, with the fall of communism
in the East and the decline of socialist movements in Latin America, the
movement lost further momentum as its ideas and rhetoric began to sound
increasingly outdated.

This did not mark the end of liberation theology. Instead,
liberation theology reinvented itself, adopting more social and economic
rather than political goals. Now, instead of advocating for class
struggle and against military dictatorships, liberation theologians have
increasingly turned their attention to AIDS, poverty, the environment,
racial justice, religious pluralism, and women's rights. This
redefinition has saved the dying movement and has led to a new wave of
localized grassroots initiatives throughout Latin America.

However, this new version of liberation theology has still been
unable to reconcile its policies with those of the central authority in
the Vatican. Because modern-day liberation theologians generally adopt a
liberal stance on issues of abortion, poverty, and contraception,
conservative Catholics continue to view them as a threat. This clash of
ideals has driven the Vatican to continue pursuing its conservative
agenda throughout Latin America in an effort to undermine the efforts of
these "new-age" liberation theologians.

A Region-Wide Conflict

While the conflict between such liberation theologians and
conservative elites is present throughout the Latin American region, it
has a tendency to manifest itself in different ways from one nation to
another. In some countries the progressives seem to hold more sway over
the people while in other countries conservative church leaders appear
to dominate.

For example, Brazil, the most populous Catholic nation in the
world, with 150 million followers, has a fairly liberal Catholic
society. Condoms are distributed on a routine basis at events such as
festivals and street parties, and 70 percent of Brazilian women use
artificial contraception. These activities have been highly effective in
the prevention of AIDS, which has historically been a serious problem in
Brazil. In 1990, the World Bank estimated that the country would have
1.2 million cases of HIV/AIDS by 2000. Today it has only about half of
that number. This success in AIDS prevention is due, in no small part,
to the Brazilian church's lack of opposition to condom use, which
many Catholics have construed as tacit support.

However, such liberalism is not the norm in all Latin American
countries. Chile has a far more conservative Church establishment, which
has been a major obstacle in campaigns to curb the spread of AIDS.
Colombia is also very strict. It is one of the few countries in the
world that continues to ban abortion entirely, even when the
mother's health is at risk. And yet, according to The Economist, an
estimated 400,000 women still opt for illegal abortions, which are often
unsafe and/or costly. A large portion of the opposition to changes in
the abortion laws comes from the upper echelons of the Colombian church
and powerful Catholics such as the Colombian president himself.

In other countries, there is not an obvious victor in the war
between local progressives and powerful conservatives. In Peru, where
liberation theology first took hold in the 1970s, grassroots movements
have been relatively successful, largely due to the country's
fairly liberal culture. Four years ago, however, the Vatican elevated a
conservative bishop from the far-right religious sect Opus Dei to the
position of Cardinal of Lima. Such Vatican support has often been a
deciding factor in battles over social issues. In El Salvador the
Vatican successfully lobbied to have every pack of condoms marked with a
warning that they are useless. It is this kind of power and influence
that progressives often find hard to fight.

Unfortunately for these priests and nuns, strong opposition from
Rome is not likely to subside in the future. With the election of the
conservative German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the Papal throne, it
quickly became apparent that the Church was unlikely to alter any of its
conservative policies. During the 1980s, Ratzinger served as the head of
the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the ideological
disciplinary arm of the Catholic Church. In this position he called
liberation theology a "fundamental threat to Catholicism" and
was responsible for silencing a number of priests and nuns. In light of
this history, there seems to be little hope in the near future for any
sort of alliance between progressives and the Vatican.

Religious Rivals

Until recently, Catholics who felt disillusioned with the
conservative doctrines of the Church had few religious alternatives. But
the past decade has witnessed the rise of new Christian sects, which are
beginning to challenge the Catholic Church's centuries-old
religious monopoly. Evangelical Christian groups have begun to expand
their proselytizing efforts and have turned their attention to Latin
America. Pentecostals have been particularly successful in attracting
new members, using missionary-style tactics to cater to the economic and
social needs of the Latin American masses.

The resulting decline in membership in the Catholic Church has
occurred at a striking rate. Several years ago, the Latin American
Catholic Bishops Conference estimated that 8,000 Latin Americans convert
to Evangelical Christianity every day, making it the fastest growing
religion in the region. Such growth has significantly altered the
religious makeup of Latin America. According to a report from the
University of Notre Dame, 20 percent of the region is now Protestant.
Brazil and Argentina have seen particularly high evangelical growth
rates, eight percent annually in the former and ten percent annually in
the latter. In many areas, the only thing keeping more Catholics from
defecting to evangelical sects is the presence of progressive local
leaders who continue to tailor their sermons and services to the needs
of their congregations.

Two Paths

In light of these developments, there is little doubt that the
Catholic Church will soon be facing some very significant decisions. As
the world rushes into the 21st century, the choice between adherence to
strict, traditional precepts and modernization in accordance with the
needs of the Catholic masses is becoming increasingly important. The
implications of this decision will undoubtedly affect the future of the
Catholic Church in the region. Based on the success of evangelical
sects, the already existing decline in Church membership seems likely to
continue should the Church maintain its current policies.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

However, the more important implication for the region is the
effect that this decision can and will have on the lives of the over
four hundred million Catholics who live in Latin America. Despite the
conservative policies of the ruling Church elites, the presence of
Catholicism has been and continues to be an incredible agent for
positive change in Latin America. Through the work of small-scale
progressives, intent on alleviating the suffering of their local
congregations, people have been better able to cope with issues such as
poverty, hunger, and disease and have been able to advocate for change
in areas of women's rights and social inequality. Grassroots
priests and nuns such as Lourdes Fuentes still exist in vast numbers
throughout the region. Their leadership in local communities continues
to lift people, both spiritually and physically, out of their suffering.

The problem is that they are pursuing their initiatives in constant
opposition to the priests and bishops who oversee them, which limits
their success. As long as this continues to be the case, the Church will
never be as effective an agent for positive change as it could be. With
a constituency that comprises 70 percent of the entire region, the
Catholic Church has the potential to exert a powerful positive influence
on the lives of the Catholic masses. The mechanisms are all in place,
waiting to be put into full use. But it remains to be seen whether the
Catholic Church will have the insight to adjust to the 21st century and
modernize its policies in accordance with its members' social and
economic needs. Failure to do so will leave the region exactly where it
is, and could even exacerbate some of the major problems it faces, such
as disease, poverty, and hunger. However, a successful modernization
process would allow the Catholic Church to make full use of its power,
influence, and resources to promote widespread positive change and
alleviate the suffering of millions of its impoverished members.

associate editor

KILLIAN CLARKE

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